


No More Blades, No More War

by yoshizora



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 09:17:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17505842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora
Summary: Someone at the refugee campground in Indol recognizes Brighid.





	No More Blades, No More War

**Author's Note:**

> i'm currently going through my 2nd ng+ playthrough just because and i found a couple interesting NPC lines in Indol. 
> 
> there's a lot that could be said about the story and its messages, but i couldn't stop thinking about what the refugees said.

“They really don’t seem to give a damn.” Zeke shrugs with his entire body and crosses his arms, squinting below. It’s nearly an entire town there, dozens of dozens of tents crammed haphazardly into what was once no doubt a grand plaza, refugees milling about aimlessly. Some of them are simply sitting on the ground. “It frustrated the hell out of me. At first, at least.”

“And now?”

“… We’ve all got our problems to sort through.” There’s weariness in his frown for a second. Just for a second. Mòrag sees the tiredness there that could dampen that spark of gung-ho energy if it isn’t kept at bay. Is it the result of working for the Praetorium? Or from years of travel? A combination of both?

Brighid watches the refugees, silent at Mòrag’s side.

“The Praetorium is generous, to support them for so many years.”

“Ten years! That’s exactly it— ten years!” Zeke slaps his hand against the railing. “You see that group of kids running around the fountain? They were _born_ in this refugee camp, and they haven’t known any other kind of life since then. Don’t you feel sorry for them?”

“Pity? No. Concern? It’s only natural.”

“We do our best to make their situation as comfortable as possible, you know,” Pandoria says. “But, they’ve gotta pull their own weight too! A few of them’ve gone off to Gormott or Uraya to find work, but most of ‘em…”

“They’d rather sit around and stew in their resentment,” Zeke finishes.

Mòrag and Brighid glance at each other.

“Not that I would blame them. No, no, that’s not my style. I get it, honestly, I really do. When you’re stuck at the bottom of a deep pit, it’s tough to climb all the way to the top by your own strength alone.”

“Speaking from literal experience?” Mòrag dryly says.

“So what if I am?!”

The others had gone off to see the sights. Nothing better to do as they wait for the following day to meet the Praetor leaves them with too much time on their hands, time they could be using for _something_ , Mòrag thinks— there’s little she detests more than wasted time being idle. And she still feels the unfortunate implications of the anti-Blade protests Zeke had explained earlier creeping down the back of her neck; people are staring.

They whisper to each other. _Look. Look. The Special Inquisitor of Mor Ardain._ The whispers are different from the ones she hears in the Empire and in Gormott, even in Uraya.

She can’t shake off this uncomfortable instinct that’s keeping her tense and on edge. Someone could attack at any moment, it says. They _want_ to.

Maybe she should have stayed at the Sanctum.

“It reminds me of home, in a way.” Zeke is talking to Pandoria now, leaving Mòrag to her thoughts.

“Yeah, except the weather’s way nicer.”

“They take the sunlight for granted too, I’d bet!”

“It’s not like they could photosynthesize!”

“Ha! That’d save Indol a chunk of resources.”

It’s _cynicism_ , Mòrag realizes. Zeke hides his cynicism with big boisterous talk and flamboyant gestures. He wants to help the refugees, clearly, but…

Zeke isn’t Rex. He can’t afford to drift in the clouds, dreaming about Elysium. Not when he had left Tantal behind him and ended up in a place like this.

They follow Zeke down the long flight of stairs as he goes on about ration allocation, or something or other, his words mere steam at this point. Brighid is still silent, though she keeps a bit closer to Mòrag’s side as they make their way past shanties held up by splintery wood and other makeshift supports, an unsightly blemish upon the pure white stone that the rest of Indol is carved out of. Ten years… of this. Rex had asked why they hadn’t simply sent refugees to other countries for work, but— of course it’s not so simple! If only they could!

Ten years can’t be more than a blink of an eye in the massive lifespan of an Indoline, or the Praetor himself. What are the lives of Gormotti and Ardainians and Urayans compared to them?

Brighid sharply inhales beside her and Mòrag snaps out of her reverie. Zeke had led them straight to the edge of the refugee campground. He’s flipping a gold coin between his fingers.

“For good luck,” he explains, nodding to the fountain where those Gormotti children are still running around.

“You could donate a million G and you’d still be plagued by your natural bad luck,” Pandoria snickers.

“Bah! Do you two feel like making a donation as well?”

“I—“

“Zeke! You’ve come back!”

They turn. Zeke grins broadly and waves to that young woman, who has dirt streaked in her hair and too many patches in her clothes.

“Natka! Of course the great Zekenator is back! I still owe the Praetor a great deal of debt— haha!”

“My Prince likes to be among the people,” Pandoria whispers to Mòrag and Brighid. “Don’t worry about all that talk from earlier. He just needed to get some grievances off his chest.”

“Have you brought anything for us?”

“Ahh… here you go, then.” Zeke flips the coin to the woman, who snatches it out of the air so fast that Mòrag blinks twice. “Don’t go spending it all at once, now! I’ve barely got my own money as it is!”

“Thank you…” Natka tucks the coin away in her pocket. Her eyes drift to Mòrag; one of them twitches at the sight of that Ardainian crest upon her cap, and then her stare falls upon Brighid.

Her blood drains from her face. Mòrag’s instinct is _screaming_ now, impossible to ignore, and she takes a small step to put herself between Natka and Brighid.

“ _You!_ ” she snarls.

All of hell breaks loose in that span of her outcry. Zeke scrambles, unsure where he’s meant to go or what he’s supposed to do; Pandoria stammers out too quickly to even be understood; Mòrag’s hand wraps around the hilt of one of her swords.

Brighid backs off, the crease between her brows deep.

Natka’s face is twisted in rage, teeth bared. She points an accusing finger at Brighid. “You’re that, that—  _monster!_ I’ll kill you! Get the hell out of here!”

People are gathering. They’re gathering to the noise. There’s no tension. It’d already snapped.

They’re closing in.

“H-hold on, now! What’s this about?!” Zeke helplessly strides back and forth, trying to motion at the other refugees to keep them at a distance.

“I can tolerate _your_ Blade because of you, Zeke! But that Ardainian Blade is the Blade who burned my house down!”

“Wha— back then?! Ten years ago?!”

“I… I recognize her,” a Gormotti man shouts out. “She was— she was with the soldiers who murdered my family! I remember! I remember the fire!”

_Blue flames._

Mòrag feels the ether flowing between her and Brighid, and she can feel Brighid clinging to it like a lifeline, her breathing unsteady and one hand tentatively reaching for her Driver.

A lifeline.

Mòrag tightly grasps her hand.

“Back off! Bunch of hooligans, that’s what you are!” Zeke shouts above the din, waving his arms about. “You can’t possibly blame all your problems on a single Blade!”

“ _Shatter her Core Crystal!_ ”

“… Well, it looks like rational conversation is off the table,” Zeke sighs. He turns to Mòrag and Brighid. “You two, go with Pandy! I’ll hold off the mob for a bit. Natka! Zayri! How about we chat about this like adults, huh! Don’t make me pull my sword out—“

 

* * *

 

They’ve both endured the burden of blame and guilt for years and years, perhaps even longer than the years Indol had been supporting the refugees. Mòrag… was born into that guilt, with her ingrained loyalty to an Empire that had resorted to conquest and annexation to meet the needs of their people. Brighid’s history runs within the veins of the Titan itself.

They’re no strangers to that hatred and anger, but all the same.

“Yikes… that was definitely something, wasn’t it?” Pandoria says once they’ve made it to Seoris Plaza. “Hey, don’t look so glum. The refugees’ve been stirred up about all that anti-Blade stuff for a little over a year now.”

“Will your Driver be alright?” Brighid says, and Mòrag realizes that’s the first time she’d spoken since the four of them had stopped to observe the refugee camp.

“Oh, sure! Like I said, my Prince is a people person. The mob will calm down once he’s given them a good scolding for trying to make a scene.”

“Mòrag! Brighid!”

Ah, impeccable timing. The rest of their little traveling party is running up to them, Rex nearly tripping over his own feet just before he reaches them. He leans against his knees, panting, and Nia whacks him on the back to make him straighten up. “Are you guys okay?! We heard some shouting at the refugee campground, but by the time we got there—“

“Not a scratch,” Mòrag quickly says.

Brighid nods. “Yes. No one was hurt.”

“Ahh, thank goodness…”

“Told ya we didn’t need to worry.” Nia lightly jabs him with her elbow. “Seriously, those two can take care of themselves just fine.”

“There’s no harm in checking on our companions, now is there?” Dromarch says. “Particularly with the current political climate in Indol…”

“Would refugees protest even to Artificial Blade like Poppi?”

“This hasn’t got anything to do with you, Tora.” Nia marches up to Mòrag and Brighid, squinting at them both. “… What were you expecting, walking around in broad daylight? Don’t you get harassed enough in Torigoth?”

“It’s not fair!” Rex says. “They haven’t even done anything wrong! I mean…”

Everyone falls silent. Even Tora keeps his mouth shut, his entire round body quivering from the heavy tension, everything feeling like it could snap at any moment again. The look on his face says enough. That’s wrong. Rex knows he’s wrong. Pandoria covers her mouth with one hand and looks back to the plaza gates, but Zeke still hasn’t returned.

“I thought something like that might happen, when Zeke brought us to the campground,” Brighid finally says, arms loosely folded over her midriff. “You think I’m ignorant to my own history? It’s all written down. I had quite the role in that war.”

“I resonated with her while the earth was still scorched,” Mòrag says, grim. “Reconciling with that knowledge was something both of us had to overcome.”

“To think I would meet some of my own victims here, today. Hah, what a coincidence.”

It's a topic they'd already breached and discussed so many times before in private together, long before the Aegis had ever awakened. Brighid would hardly consider herself absolved of any of the atrocities she'd committed with other Drivers, even when she has no personal recollection of those past events, but there are always other things to consider. That mob wasn't a bother, no, not in any urgent way that the others might assume with all that yelling and threats. It was just a... normal thing. At least Zeke was there to defuse the situation.

“How can you say all that so casually?” Rex’s expression falls. “Look, I can’t pretend to really understand all that stuff. It’s way beyond me. But… it’s not _your_ fault. Not in the way the refugees think it is.”

“Right. The Blades are just a convenient scapegoat for their misery.”

“—Shellhead?! Argh, you’ve got to stop popping up out of nowhere like that—“

“Those ruffians are all tuckered out and ready to slink back into their tents.” Zeke jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. But I guess I should’ve been more conscious about giving you two a tour of the whole plaza. My bad.”

“So it’s _your_ fault for bringing ‘em down there in the first place!”

“What’s that, fuzzy ears?! You raring for a fight?!”

The blame circulates and circulates until people don’t even know who to blame. All that’s left is a bunch of refugees in patchy clothes with dirt-streaked hair crouching in tents, waiting for handouts from the very nation they resent, aimless and hopeless. Mòrag knows it. Brighid knows it. Zeke knows it. Everyone knows it.

There is no justice in their rationality. Mòrag still feels that faint ether tether lingering between them, unnoticed by anyone else. They’ve both done their part in contributing to the damages caused by the country they love so dearly.

It’s a cruel, twisted thing. Mòrag and Brighid tune out the noise of the group and turn to each other, their understanding wordless and profound.

“That’s why… that’s why we all need to get to Elysium,” Rex says with a sort of finality, chin held defiantly high and desperate optimism burning in the place of jaded weariness. “Because what else _can_ we do?”


End file.
